Assad should not be appeased

Don’t we ever learn? We appeased Hitler in 1939 and it led to WWII. Now we want to look the other way like we did with Jews, as Assad gases his own country into submission.

Clark Waters

WWII Vet

Point Loma

Can’t trust the Obama administration

How can we trust that the Obama administration is telling us the truth about who set off the chemical weapons in Syria and whether we are strengthening the jihadists (like we did in Egypt) in supporting the so called “moderate” Syrian rebels?

How can this administration know so much about what’s really happening in Syria but so little about Benghazi? Why should we and our representatives trust an administration that lied about a “Muslim video” causing Benghazi, manipulated intelligence and is still not revealing why the president went AWOL last Sept. 11 and continued campaign appearances while brave former Navy SEALs, our ambassador and CIA technician died during the attack? Why should we and our representatives believe an administration that does gun running to drug cartels (“Fast and Furious”), lies to Congress about NSA surveillance of its own citizens and has the IRS target political opponents and plead the fifth?

Obama has already damaged our credibility in the world. An attack now will only worsen the situation. His arrogant incompetence, lack of leadership and deceit are on full display to the world. It is amateur hour. Our representatives can move to restore U.S. credibility by voting not to support Obama’s misadventures.

MaryRose Consiglio

Del Mar

Another Iraq in the making

Should Syrians be executed by chemicals or should Syrians be executed by missiles? What a dilemma for our honorable congressional representatives. I thought we were supposed to be bringing democracy to these countries we keep invading? This is just another Iraq but with a different president.

Marlene Mariani

Encinitas

Humanitarian aid is the answer

The president, House of Representatives and Senate are treading on very thin ice in deciding to strike Syria. History has proved that the United States does not intervene with military ammunition without later putting American lives on the ground, at grave risks.

Our nation’s focus in Syria can still deliver compassion for refugees and religious outcasts through humanitarian assistance programs and liaising with international partners. Despite good intentions of bringing down Bashar al-Asaad’s regime and restoring regional peace, the government must recognize that there are far fewer consequences to helping refugees with food, blankets and medical equipment than there are to sending missiles that beset retaliation, and eventually more bloodshed.

Courtney Hibbard

La Jolla

Politicians are playing war

I spent a career studying and training for war, but one thing is clear: Politicians in Washington generally disregard professional military advice, opting for the fascination of playing at a game of great power and influence with little more expectation that the thrill of pulling levers on an enormously powerful system of which they have no understanding. And so the country is again on the verge of intervening in a foreign situation where military advice is to stay out. Syria is a problem of the worst kind — a civil war in which good guys and bad guys are indistinguishable and no matter what atrocities are committed, intervention is guaranteed to fail and cost the United States. The Vietnam War ended in disaster because the leading politicians tried to play war.

Tom Davis

Chula Vista

Assad is an animal

Regarding the president’s initiative to “degrade” Syria’s military, as a consequence of them using sarin gas to kill 1,400 Syrians, 400 of whom were children, I am amazed at the weak reaction by those who would look for “some other way” to punish the Assad regime.

While the fainthearted dither, Assad and al-Qaida laugh at our weakness. They, who are not constrained by morality or other human values, kill, unfettered by issues that normal humans consider. What is to keep other dictators and power mongers from doing the same thing Assad has done, and what is to keep him from doing it again? Without severe consequences, these animals will continue to commit atrocities.

Does anyone really think that diplomacy or economic sanctions will restrain the Assad regime from its inhuman acts?

This man and his generals are animals. The only thing they understand is action that may end their reign of terror, namely bombs, airstrikes, missiles.

Those who don’t understand this are like those Americans who didn’t want to get involved in WWII. If we had listened to them we’d all be speaking German.

Gregory Dean Morrill

Escondido

Congress will make the wrong choice

I am against any punitive action by our country in Syria, such as precision bombing, etc. This is the most senseless action by any administration that one can imagine. Will Congress vote for this stupidity? Yes.

The Democrats are famous for voting in a bloc for anything that might affect their party and an inept president. President Obama brought this about by off-the-cuff remarks about red lines and such without thinking of the consequences. We as a country should not have to suffer for his mistakes and misstatements. Trying to save his tattered reputation by doing this surgical bombing bit and “no boots on the ground” is a farce.

Another advantage to the Democrats: it will take the country’s mind off the terrible economy at home. We’re already the laughing stock of the world, let’s not make it worse! The unintended consequences of such an action are enormous and haven’t been thought out. Iran must be having a field day watching this happen.

Congress can’t think straight, and the Dems can’t shoot straight. Let’s stop this madness before it gets worse, and it will.

Charles Hartman

San Marcos

Monster in Syria should be stopped

Many members of Congress have stated that they will not support any action in Syria, because they do not want to repeat the mistake of the Iraq War. Are they aware that the chemical weapons used in the attack by the Syrian regime are most likely the same ones that were moved out of Iraq in anticipation of the U.S. led invasion? Or that the one of the main inspirations for the mass protests in Egypt, and throughout the Middle East, is the democratic government established in Iraq, as imperfect as it may be? Or that these movements provide an opportunity to bring about lasting change for the better in this world, if we only have the courage? Or that simple human decency demands that we do what we can to stop a monster who would do this to his own people, much as we did with the mass murderer Saddam Hussein?

No, I doubt that many members of Congress have thought of any of these things.

Augusto Sanchez

Allied Gardens

Dreadful play under way

The current situation with Syria is akin to watching the third bad act of a bad play.

Act 2 — Iraq — under the guise of stopping Saddam Hussein and his caches of weapons of mass destruction, we embark on a second front costing even more lives, further damage to our economy and of our credibility throughout the world. Twice, brave Americans, believing in the fight for freedom and justice, do a masterful job of representing America honorably in the Middle East.

And now Act 3 — Syria — and once again, weapons of mass destruction and chemical weapons are the excuse for America to carry the torch into battle (albeit limited). We may have actually have proof that chemical weapons have been used here.

Here’s the dilemma: We don’t know who launched the attacks. We have a ruthless regime headed by Assad, a fractious civilian uprising whose leadership is a mosaic of various interests of unknown intent or ability to lead, AND al-Qaida, all vying to sit on top of the mountain when the dust settles.

I wouldn’t put the use of chemical weapons past either of these factions, each having motivation to blame the other, each seeking “the moral hight ground.” Until we know with absolute certainty, we need to sit this one out. We know what happened when we upset the balance of power in the middle east by toppling Hussein in Iraq. Iran seized the opportunity to advance its own agenda and Iraq is a mess.

Until such time that our national security is actually at risk, let the Syrians fight their own battle and let’s be proactive in preparing to contain what will no doubt be a messy situation no matter who wins. In the meantime, we keep our troops out of the way and let these Third World ideologues solve their own problems. One would think after two fiascos we would have learned our lesson.

Jack V. Cohen

San Diego

Civilians die in civil wars

Obama has been having great sport in condemning President Assad for the deaths of civilians in the Syrian civil war. That’s what happens when people try to overthrow their government. The government tries to stop the rebellion, and citizens on both sides of the issue are killed. Is that fighting the fault of the president or the rebels?

Obama says that one of his great heroes is Abraham Lincoln. In Lincoln’s civil war he sent Grant, Sherman, Meade, Hooker, McClellan and hundreds of thousands of American soldiers into American states to keep American citizens from dissolving the union. Antietam, Shiloh and Gettysburg were not picnics in the park. Over 650,000 American Civil War casualties occurred when Lincoln was president.

So far Obama has backed the rebels in civil wars in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. How has that worked out for their people?

John Joseph Roddy

Oceanside

No moral high ground

The case to bomb Syria that the Obama administration has put forward includes revulsion at the death of hundreds of children that the administration says the Assad government caused with chemical weapons. Somehow this gives America the moral authority to bomb Syria and kill more children, whom we will call “collateral damage” because collaterally killed children are not real children like the ones the Syrians kill.

Since 2007 we Americans have killed approximately 185 children in Pakistan alone, via drone strikes, and we have the moral authority to strike the Syrians for doing the same?

Whether using nerve gas or drones, the children still die because we lack morality altogether. When it’s over we can tell the dead children that we did it for their own good.